After hearing about the support through a friend Emma Jackson of Hunter Paper Co. successfully applied through the open competitive opportunity “Assistance to International Trade Fair”. This allowed her to avail of financial support, a creative momentum project, to attend an international trade fair.
Having researched potential international trade fairs Emma knew that Top Drawer in London would be the one that held the potential to be of most economic benefit to her business. Emma knew that in order to get the most out of her experience selling in London there was a lot of work to be done in preparation. We asked Emma what she did to prepare
"Around 4 to 5 months in advance I engaged with the fair organisers and their partners to discuss shipping. Top Drawer have a great online portal for information which helped a lot with all the organizing. The only real problem I had in terms of shipping was getting a lorry to collect from a residential property as I work from home"
EMMA JACKSON November 27th 2017
Emma also engaged directly with potential new and returning customers prior to the event, specifically stockists that she knew would be present in London thanks to her research
"I sent out promotional postcards to shops I’m interested in stocking and current stockists, as well as promoting on social media. I then decided on what I would showcase at the fair itself, I displayed a sample of everything in my range. I displayed the greetings cards on thin shelves, and had a cabinet to store catalogues, with an iPad displaying a video of my process and a small printing press displayed on top on "
EMMA JACKSON, HUNTER PAPER CO November 27th 2017
Due to Emma’s organization, hard work and professionalism she can claim that her attendance at the fair in September 2017 was worth the time and effort. She was visited by both repeat and new stockists in London. Further to her discussions she was able to take 9 wholesale orders at the actual show while also writing new orders for new stockists. Thanks to her discussions at the trade fair and subsequent follow up she has since been in conversation with several stockists from afar a field as the USA and Japan. Appreciating that successfully capitalising on trade fair attendance involves a lot of dilgent follow up work Emma has already been able to add a further 12 orders as a result of this Creative Momentum support. Indeed Emma’s top tip for attending a trade show is
"Make the most of the opportunity to promote your business before the show. Make sure you follow up on leads afterwards"
EMMA JACKSON, HUNTER PAPER CO November 27th 2017
Emma can now demonstrate significant economic upturn following her attendance at the London trade fair, she has a number of new repeat customers outside of Northern Ireland and has already taken on one new member of stuff to help handle the extra workload.
Emma has already made the decision to take Hunter Paper Co. back to Top Drawer this coming January to continue the growth and development of Hunter Paper Co.
a creative momentum project is co-funded through the EU Northern Periphery & Arctic Programme (NPA) which aims to increase economic activity and co-operation across the regions of Europe’s northern periphery.
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